Personal injury lawsuits and personal injury insurance settlements in McAllen, Edinburg, Brownsville, Pharr and across South Texas bring various and complex state laws may come into play. Understanding these laws and navigating them can have a huge impact on your case. In this post, I’ll give you a brief synopsis of Texas’s personal injury laws.
Texas has Stringent Time Limits on Personal Injury Lawsuits
Statutory limits on the amount of time you have file a lawsuit after you have been injured is called a statute of limitations. These deadlines (or Statue of Limitations) vary depending on the type of lawsuit you will be filing.
In Texas, the personal injury statute of limitations is two years from the date of the injury. In other words, you only have two years from the date of your accident to get to court and file a lawsuit against the person that injured you.
Understanding the Statute of Limitations is important because if you don’t file your lawsuit before the two-year statute runs, you will likely not be able to get into a Texas Court and your ability to recover money from the person that injured you will be gone.
Texas Allows the Blame for your Injuries to be Shared
It is very common that in personal injury cases the person or business that caused your injuries will actually to blame you(at least partially) for your own injuries. They will try to blame YOU for not being more careful to avoid the accident or that you did something or failed to take some action which makes you at least partially responsible. This is done because if the person that hurt you can convince a jury that you are at least partly to blame, the business or person that injured you will pay less.
Texas adheres to a system called “modified comparative negligence rule.” Simply put, it means that the amount of compensation/money you receive will be reduced by an amount that is equal to your percentage of fault. However, But if the jury finds you are more than 50 percent responsible for your own injuries, you are precluded from recovering any money at all.
Here is an example of modified comparative negligence: Imagine you are sitting at a stop light and you get rear ended by some that is texting. However, the driver’s side brake lights does not work on your vehicle as required by law. During a jury trial, the jury decides that because your brake light did not work, you are 25 % to blame (“at fault”) for your injuries. The jury says driver that hit you is 75 % at fault. You are awarded $100,000.00 by the jury. How does your 25 % share of the fault reduce your $100,000.00? Under Texas's modified comparative negligence rule, your $100,000.00 jury award will be reduced by $25,000, which represents you portion of the blame. You will therefore receive $75,000.00.
Texas law requires that courts follow this modified comparative negligence rule in any personal injury lawsuit that goes to trial. Modified comparative negligence rule is a powerful tool insurance companies use to try and reduce the amount of funds you are entitled to. Having an experienced personal injury lawyer can help you avoid this pitfall and get the most money for your injury.
If you have bee injured in an accident, call me today at 956-501-6565. That is my personal cell phone number. You will speak directly with me about your case.
